The radio is not under the shield ! I haven't opened mine yet but looking at the pictures there look to be some sort of contact pins and is possibly the transflash slot ! The radio is probably just a single chip device so I would guess if all the chips (The small 8 pin chip for example) are present on the board then the radio does exist somewhere.

OK. I've only had the machine a few hours but I decided I might as well open it up and get the photos before getting used to the machine and then break it The good news is that it is back together and it still works

(mine is a e270 but I suspect the only difference is the little memory board which clips off)

the front of the board contains various buttons , battary, leds ,the scroll wheel along with a few chips. The main chip appears to be a philips LVC244A which from google is a octal buffer/driver which is probably something to do with reading the button states. there are a couple of other small 8 pin chips but I couldn't see what was written on them (hopefully getting the photos on my pc will help there). I didn't remove the screen but there doesn't look to be much behind there except for a few resistors/caps.

there is also a version number and possible board number written here MS-55511 and VER: 1.0

one thing i did notice is on the photos, linked above ,there is a label saying FM1 near the yellow 010 sticker and on the front is a tab with FM2 which appears to make connection to a metal shield around the buttons which appears to serves no purpose except for maybe being an internal antenna?!?

So my best guess is that the radio does exist somewhere

on a slightly different note.. I have read the various comments about the two files which exist in the root directory which contain version info but has anyone tried changing the one that appears when the machine is in emergency restore mode ? It seems to be the same as one of the files normally available.

(I'll attach the photo's later when I find my cable for the camera)
PS. Mine is the EU version with no FM tuner bought from memoryzoo.co.uk

Hi!
I can't remember where I read a post by someone who renamed the folders in the FW update.
He renamed the american FW to the european FW and vice versa. I don't know if this helps anything with the FM-support for the EU-version, but it might be worth the try.

I forgot to say that if you then try to update the player with the FW updater you might trick the player to load the american FW on a european player...

Hi!
I can't remember where I read a post by someone who renamed the folders in the FW update.
He renamed the american FW to the european FW and vice versa. I don't know if this helps anything with the FM-support for the EU-version, but it might be worth the try.

I forgot to say that if you then try to update the player with the FW updater you might trick the player to load the american FW on a european player...

this has been already tried. the radio menu came up but no sound could be received

Yeah look there is a chip missing in the EU version. Look right next to the connections that connects the memory board to the main board. I dont know what that chip it but it could be related to FM or it is not there because of a hardware revision.

shit i hope that this is not the radio chip .. probably is though. i wonder why they said though that there is no difference between the hardware just the software. strange but what can one do. hmm pity

Yeah look there is a chip missing in the EU version. Look right next to the connections that connects the memory board to the main board. I dont know what that chip it but it could be related to FM or it is not there because of a hardware revision.

bugger.. I guess I should of removed the memory board (I didn't want to chance breaking the board tracks by removing the tape) when I opened mine.

according to the rockbox wiki this chip has V24020 and 6BK4 written on it.

I've had a look around various chip sites and can't find anything that looks too much like that chip. From the single chip fm radio chips I could find they all had a load more pins which all seem to have a use (look at the various pdf technical documents at silabs.com Si4700/01 and st.com TDA7511 ). Looking at the photo above it appears that this chip has 17 of its pins tied directly to ground. Maybe a custom fm radio chip or a cheap no-name chip (comments elsehwere on this board hint that the quality isn't overly high)

Hmm would make sense if the missing chip is the radio “module”. Damn that is to bad I think, why the f*** did Sandisk not just leave the radio function in the EU version…strange…Anyway I am not really a radio fan, and that was not really the main priority when I bought the device (don’t really care for the photo/video part too), I just needs a flash based MP3 player, that can hold my favourite cd’s, if I want to listen to radio on the move, I can use my mobile phone (never uses it though)…

If radio is a big issue, then just buy a radio headphones, like this cheap-ass headphones …

Or check out one of these wary cool radios…I know… they are too f****** cool …

i just call to scandisk @ holland en the tol me thate the radio was not include even when i want to use it for education thing's for a school the can/wont tell me why it's not include the can not aswer on my quastion becas the dont have the right from te company for it it's almost like it's somthing ileagel state secret or somthing it's realy streance.. but the girl @ the other side ( i do no where the get her but i thing she wass realy very cheak to pay mondley @ the sound of her vioce :P *lol* ) but no i also dont have a anser for it whene i ask her: * if i bay it's in the US thane i have a radio on it* .. she see to me: * if you do thate i can not gerentee you you get te radio version send to you ... if you do you maby cant reseve any singal for your radio* when i ask her to tel me why thate is ... she see agian sorry i'm not aloud to tell you thate i only know thate there is no radio in EU ..

so folks i realy gone thing thate it's a ending story i've seen the foto's from the hardware en look @ the frimware but there is mor RDM ( windows media key to not play file thate are lockt) are also not in the EU version becas it's have somting to do with the radio when it's work to record it :S ..

so this is what i found sorry.... but .. :P Whe shale go on! to the bitting end *lol*

"...though the integrated FM radio has been disabled because of the additional tax the EU puts on any device that carries one. SanDisk told me that its market research suggested consumers would be reluctant to pay this extra cost so the feature was switched off. Given that it does still reside in the player, I’d keep my eye out for fans’ unofficial firmware which will no doubt sort this out…"

If the missing chip in mine e270 EU version, was compared to an e270 American version. My thought is that maybe the e250 and e270 have different print boards, and the picture from mine, was compared to the picture from Anything But iPod's review, but this 2 models are maybe not exactly the same, because the extra 4g memory in the e270, maybe the e270 have the missing chip intergraded in the extra memory chip on the memory board. Anyway, anyone who wishes to take apart there e270 American version, and shot some pictures of the back print board (includes the removal of the memory board). This way we can once and for all confirm if the missing chip more or likely is the radio module.

Yesterday i called the sandisk support and the guy on the hotline told me that it has to do with the different frequencys in the US/Europe. He said in the US it´s about 10khz and in the EU 9khz, i don´t know if he is right or talking sh**!? But if he is right it make sense to me, but i´m no expert!!

I send an Private Message to the 2 guys from this board who said they bought an player in the EU with working radio to find out if say can receive s.th. But i guess if the radio is inside but they can´t receive any radio station they have told us so!??

I found a site here in Denmark, with two e270 on the website, one where they wrote ”without radio” and another more expensive one, where they did not write ”without radio” I contacted them, to hear if the more expensive one was with radio or??? This was the answer I got:

Translated in English:
Unfortunately none of the models have FM radio, because the EU tax does, that Sandisk have removed the FM radio part of there software in those models that are sold in EU.

So it seams right, that it is due the extra tax, that Sandisk have not included the FM radio in EU. Why they did not just make at standard (without radio) and a premium (with radio) in the EU is not some thing I can understand, but I am sure they are having there reasons.

It would though be nice to compare a US e270 to the EU e270, to confirm the missing chip in my EU e270 is in fact the radio part…

Hi All, just got my e270 today, found this excellent forum. Anyway, I am in Ireland, got a euro player, and the radio option IS on the player, with full fm freq range. However, I am unable to pick up any stations. I can hear very faint music on our typical strongest station, seems like an antenna issue? Joe